Eyes-On With Joe McNally's 'Hot Shoe Diaries'

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Eyes-On With Joe McNally's 'Hot Shoe Diaries'

Book reviews aren’t something we do a lot of here on Gadget Lab, but we have to call out the quite excellent “Hot Shoe Diaries” by Joe McNally, a bible for anyone thinking about using small strobes in their photography.

If books on photography technique usually leave you disappointed, you’re in for a treat. McNally’s book offers big fat doses of both anecdote (this guy has lived about five lives already) and solid instruction. There’s no wooly theoretical musing — you get hard advice and plenty of explanation mixed in with lots of example shots (and not just the good shots, either — you’ll find the ones that went wrong as useful teaching aids).

The book comes in four sections. The first covers the gear and what Joe does on his way to a shoot. Then we get a whole section on what is possible with just one light, then two, then lots of lights. You can’t get much more straightforward.

The only possible criticism is that McNally goes pretty heavy on the Nikon side of things, especially Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System), its proprietary wireless control system. If you want to know the things about this kit that reven the engineers don’t know, you’ll find it here. That said, a strobe is a strobe, and all the principles apply, even if you can’t have the camera take care of everything for you.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. The publisher, Peachpit Press, has made a generous chunk of the book available in pdf form for your sampling pleasure. If you are even slightly interested in flash photography, buy this book. It really is that good. $40 or less.